


Drawing the Line

by Jaakkola



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Banter, Childhood Memories, Established Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Past Lives, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 21:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21482890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaakkola/pseuds/Jaakkola
Summary: The two talk about their past. Sort of.
Relationships: Flynn Fairwind/Mathias Shaw
Comments: 4
Kudos: 67





	Drawing the Line

"Well, that's a sight," Fairwind panted out as he caught up to Shaw. The sun was setting, beginning it's dip being the mountains and sharing it's last light across the Sound.

"That it is," Shaw replied as he knelt down. The two had been traversing the rooftops of Boralus; Fairwind had been persistent in asking Shaw to show him how to roof-walk, and after Fairwind had been a minimal pain in another recovery mission, he decided to reward the man's effort. Small steps towards wrangling Fairwind's behavior, but steps nonetheless.

To Fairwind's credit, he kept up with Shaw fairly well. It was a slower pace than Shaw usually moved at, yes, but he had fully expected having to stop and wait for Fairwind repeatedly, and while he wasn't at Shaw's heels, he was never too far behind. "We taking a break?" Fairwind asked between his heavy breathing.

"We can keep pushing, if you'd rather."

"No, I'm fine with a breather," Fairwind assured as he sat down beside Shaw. "How long have you been doing this sort of thing, anyway?"

"Since I was a kid."

Shaw looked to Fairwind, watching him mull that over. "I gotta admit, kinda hard to imagine you as anything other than an uptight old man."

Shaw sighed, already regretting giving in to Fairwind's persistence.

"You seem like the type that was born uptight though," Fairwind continued, "like it's in your blood to be annoyed by fun or something."

"And yet, you asked me to show you something you perceived as fun."

"Eh, you do it for work, though. It's different for you."

Shaw didn't respond to that, looking across Boralus. The two were perched not too far from the fish market, and from where they sat, Shaw could see vendors closing up for the day. A few cocky seagulls take turn diving for the fish, where a young man, perhaps a vendor's son, with a large broom stood waiting for them. One would dive, and the man would lunge for the bird, swatting at it with unbridled fury. The back and forth continued for several minutes.

"How did you become a captain?" Shaw asked suddenly, looking away from the scene and back to Fairwind.

Fairwind seemed startled by the question, and Shaw could see Fairwind quickly look for a joke to ease a flatfooted feeling. "What, couldn't dig that up from anyone in my past?"

"No, all I got was that you have tabs needing settled."

"You're really bad at jokes, y'know that?"

"I wasn't joking."

"It was like a half joke."

"Fine," Shaw conceded.

"Don't worry, I can be funny for the both of us."

Fairwind was adept at talking in circles without saying anything of genuine use and switching subjects in a seamless way, to the point where Shaw admired him for it. If he didn't have such an issue with following orders and respecting superiors, he would have made a great agent after some training. It was less admirable, however, when Shaw wanted to know something about Fairwind and he found himself struggling to get something out of Fairwind that wasn't vague, if not straight up unrelated and useless.

Shaw had took the time to practice what Fairwind responded best to. A sense of authority was met with resistance the entire way, which wasn't unexpected for a pirate, but was still infuriating none the less. He could follow overall orders, the _spirit of the job,_ Fairwind had put it, for a monetary incentive, but that was about it. Buying him a drink only worsened the talking in circles, to the point where Shaw wondered if he was aware he did that in conversation or if it was just a bad habit that became painfully apparent with alcohol (perhaps both).

Banter, however, got one far in conversation with Fairwind. Shaw knew this, and used this information sparingly, for when he really wanted to know something about the man. So when Fairwind freely left the opportunity open, Shaw responded with, "how will you manage that? You're not even funny enough for yourself."

"Wow!" Fairwind exclaimed, eyes wide with surprise. He laughed, a genuine laugh that makes him tip his head back and smile wide. He gave Shaw a light shove in response. "Okay, I walked into that one," Fairwind said once he managed to get his laughter under control, "didn't think you had that sort of thing in you." He rubbed at his stubble, still smiling. "Okay, why do you want to know?"

"You don't seem like someone who would..." Shaw looked for the right words. "...want to be a figure of authority." 

Fairwind let out a slight chuckle. "That's a delicate way of putting it, but I suppose you're not wrong."

"So, why did you become one?"

"Y'know what pirates do to captains they don't like, Shaw?" Fairwind started. There was a breeze that bordered on wind, and the few stray hairs that weren't tamed by Fairwind's hair tie blew into his face. He didn't seem to notice.

"I do not," Shaw said, hoping this was going somewhere.

"Best case scenario, you're marooned with a bottle of rum and a pistol with a single shot," Fairwind explained, "worst and most likely scenario, you're just killed."

Shaw frowned. "That doesn't explain why you became a captain."

"I'm getting to it," Fairwind assured, which Shaw did not believe in the slightest. "Anyway, I've been sailing since I was a young lad, and I have seen a number of captains face mutiny. The thing about all the captains that got mutinied, they didn't care about the crew. They didn't respect us or care about us or anything. All they wanted was power.

"My last mutiny I actually led." The wind picked up, and Fairwind pushed the loose strands behind his ear. "Mutinies run on the assumption that the one who leads them becomes captain, and so," Fairwind gestured to himself, "here I am."

"You could have refused."

"Then Harlan would have been captain." Shaw watched a mixture of anger and regret slowly come over Fairwind as he said that. "I trusted Harlan with a lot of things, but, well, y'know how he was. It was my duty to make sure the crew was led by someone who wasn't a maniac."

"And then you were mutinied."

"I was not _mutinied,"_ Fairwind spat the word out like it was an insult, "you of all people should know that."

"Didn't mean to strike a nerve," Shaw said. He meant it.

Fairwind sighed. "It's alright. Can't change the winds, and all that."

They sat in silence for a while. Shaw looked over to the fish market in time to see the young man with the broom hit himself in the face with it. There's laughter from the few stragglers in the market who witnessed it. To add insult to injury, a seagull swooped down at his head with a viciousness. "You care about your crew."

Shaw looked to Fairwind when he didn't immediately respond, and saw the pirate looking rather confused. "Yeah, of course I do. You care for your agents, yeah?"

That was a difficult question. In Shaw's line of work, everyone was expendable, including him, and everyone kept to a professional relationship. He wasn't necessarily apathetic to his agents, but he couldn't say he extended the same hand Fairwind did to his crew. "Not the same way you do," he settled on.

"Suppose the circumstances are a bit different."

"Yes."

The silence was awkward between them. Fairwind clearly didn't enjoy it, breaking it with, "so, any other fun hobbies you had as a kid?"

Shaw thought for a moment, frowning. "Can't say I really had any other hobbies."

"Really?" Fairwind asked with incredulous. "What did you do for fun?"

Shaw made an overarching gesture between the two and out across the city. "This."

The answer seemed to frustrate Fairwind. "What did you do other than this?" He mocked Shaw's gesture.

"I worked, Fairwind. It's a foreign concept for you, I know."

"As a kid?"

"Yes."

Fairwind didn't like that answer either, if the way his face twisted was anything to go by. "That's not right."

"That's just how my family has been," Shaw shrugged noncommittally. It had been a long time since Shaw had strong feelings about what his childhood should or should not have been like.

"What, your parents raise you into being a stuck up assassin or something?" Fairwind asked. That was a bridge too far for Shaw, and he didn't respond. Fairwind, thankfully, seemed to take the hint and did what he did best, change subjects. "Well, I have a ton of hobbies, so don't worry, I can show you how to have a fun time."

"If your hobbies include getting inebriated or doing something illegal, I'm not interested."

"I mean, that shortens the list a tad, but I can still find something for us to do." Fairwind gave Shaw a self-assured grin as he moved to close the gap between them. "For instance," he said before he pressed his lips to Shaw's.

Shaw smiled into the kiss, parting after a moment to say, "this was one of your hobbies as a child?"

"Well, I was a bit older, but yes," Fairwind said, pulling Shaw back into a kiss. Fairwind's unruly stubble scratched against Shaw's clean shaven face as the pirate took the spy's bottom lip between his teeth. One of Fairwind's hands roams Shaw's armor, fingers dragging over the corset laces and heading lower.

Shaw caught Fairwind's hand by the wrist and pulled away again. "Not here."

"C'mon, Shaw, where's your sense of adventure?" Fairwind goaded.

"I've had sex on a roof before, and let me tell you, it's not comfortable in the slightest."

Shaw would be a liar if he said he didn't enjoy the way Fairwind's eyebrows hitched up with shocked surprise. "You've done _what_ before?" Fairwind asked.

"What, did you think you're the only scoundrel I've ever met with on the rooftops?" Shaw pulled away from Fairwind, giving the slightest of grins. "C'mon, break time is over."

Fairwind scrambled to his feet, saying, "Oh no, you're telling me this story!"

"Maybe if you can keep up, I will," Shaw called over his shoulder as he crossed the rooftop.

**Author's Note:**

> me: i got a great idea for a fic. it's them talking at sunset about their past in a vague way. totally new idea that i haven't written about before. not at all.
> 
> find me at turalyfun on Tumblr. i set up a fairshaw discord if you're not in that already, you can find the link on Tumblr.


End file.
